The Trump administration is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.

The creation of such a program raises the possibility that the effort would be used to create an intelligence apparatus to justify the Trump administration’s political agenda.

“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”

North, who appears frequently on Trump’s favorite TV network, Fox News, was enlisted to help sell the effort to the administration. He was the “ideological leader” brought in to lend credibility, said the former senior intelligence official.

Some of the individuals involved with the proposals secretly met with major Trump donors asking them to help finance operations before any official contracts were signed.

The proposals would utilize an army of spies with no official cover in several countries deemed “denied areas” for current American intelligence personnel, including North Korea and Iran. The White House has also considered creating a new global rendition unit meant to capture terrorist suspects around the world, as well as a propaganda campaign in the Middle East and Europe to combat Islamic extremism and Iran.

“I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or [White House] at all,” wrote Michael N. Anton, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, in an email. “The White House does not and would not support such a proposal.” But a current U.S. intelligence official appeared to contradict that assertion, stating that the various proposals were first pitched at the White House before being delivered to the CIA. The Intercept reached out to several senior officials that sources said had been briefed on the plans by Prince, including Vice President Mike Pence. His spokesperson wrote there was “no record of [Prince] ever having met with or briefed the VP.” North did not respond to a request for comment.

According to two former senior intelligence officials, Pompeo has embraced the plan and lobbied the White House to approve the contract. Asked for comment, a CIA spokesperson said, “You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda.”

At the heart of the scheme being considered by the White House are Blackwater founder Erik Prince and his longtime associate, CIA veteran John R. Maguire, who currently works for the intelligence contractor Amyntor Group. Maguire also served on Trump’s transition team. Amyntor’s role was first reported by BuzzFeed News.

Michael Barry, who was recently named NSC senior director for intelligence programs, worked closely with Prince on a CIA assassination program during the Bush administration.

Prince and Maguire deny they are working together. Those assertions, however, are challenged by current and former U.S. officials and Trump donors who say the two men were collaborating.

As with many arrangements in the world of CIA contracting and clandestine operations, details of who is in charge of various proposals are murky by design and change depending on which players are speaking. An Amyntor official said Prince was not “formally linked to any contract proposal by Amyntor.” In an email, Prince rejected the suggestion that he was involved with the proposals. When asked if he has knowledge of this project, Prince replied: “I was/am not part of any of those alleged efforts.”

The former senior intelligence official with direct knowledge of the efforts scoffed at Prince’s denials. “Erik’s proposal had no company names on the slides,” this person said, “but there is no doubt that Prince and Maguire were working together.”

Prince and Maguire have a long professional relationship. Maguire recently completed a stint as a consultant with Prince’s company, Frontier Services Group, a Hong Kong-based security and logistics company partially owned by the Chinese government. FSG has no known connections to the private spy plan.

Prince has strong ties to the Trump administration: His sister Betsy DeVos is secretary of education, he was a major donor to the Trump election campaign, and he advised the transition team on intelligence and defense appointments, as The Intercept has previously reported. Prince has also contributed to Pence’s campaigns.

Maguire spent more than two decades as a paramilitary officer in the CIA, including tours in Central America working with the Contras. He has extensive experience in the Middle East, where he helped plan the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Maguire and Prince met together in September with a senior CIA official at a Virginia restaurant to discuss privatizing the war in Afghanistan.

Prince told a top fundraiser that Maguire was working on part of his Afghanistan plan, characterizing it as the first part of a multi-pronged program. The fundraiser added that Prince never directly asked him for money. But sources close to the project say Maguire did seek private funding for Amyntor’s efforts until a CIA contract materialized. “They’ve been going around asking for a bridge loan to float their operations until the CIA says yes,” said a person who has been briefed on the fundraising efforts.

Beginning last spring and into the summer, Maguire and a group of Amyntor representatives began asking Trump donors to support their intelligence efforts in Afghanistan, the initial piece of what they hoped would be a broader program. Some Trump fundraisers were asked to provide introductions to companies and wealthy clients who would then hire Amyntor for economic intelligence contracts. Maguire explained that some of the profit from those business deals would fund their foreign intelligence collection. Others were asked to give money outright.

“[Maguire] said there were people inside the CIA who joined in the previous eight years [under Obama] and inside the government, and they were failing to give the president the intelligence he needed,” said a person who was pitched by Maguire and other Amyntor personnel. To support his claim, Maguire told at least two people that National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, in coordination with a top official at the National Security Agency, authorized surveillance of Steven Bannon and Trump family members, including Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Adding to these unsubstantiated claims, Maguire told the potential donors he also had evidence McMaster used a burner phone to send information gathered through the surveillance to a facility in Cyprus owned by George Soros.

Amyntor employees took potential donors to a suite in the Trump Hotel in Washington, which they claimed was set up to conduct “secure communications.” Some White House staff and Trump campaign supporters came to refer to the suite as “the tinfoil room,” according to one person who visited the suite. This account was confirmed by another source to whom the room was described. “John [Maguire] was certain that the deep state was going to kick the president out of office within a year,” said a person who discussed it with Maguire. “These guys said they were protecting the president.”

Maguire and others at Amyntor have boasted that they have already sent intelligence reports to Pompeo.

Oliver North testifying before Congress in 1986, and Erik Prince testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2007, in Washington, D.C.

Photos: AFP/Getty, AP

Prince, Maguire, and North have long shared a common frustration over the failure of the U.S. government to bring two suspects from a high-profile terrorist event in the 1980s to justice. Last summer, Maguire discussed rendering the suspects with White House officials after learning the men had been located in the Middle East. Despite having no U.S. government approval, associates of Maguire began working on a snatch operation earlier this year, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Prince colleague.

Maguire, concerned that the FBI would not take action, made an offer to senior White House officials. The message, according to a person with direct knowledge of the rendition plan, was: “We’re going to go get these guys and bring them to the U.S. Who should we hand them over to?”

The rendition plan was meant to be a demonstration that Maguire and his associates had an active intelligence network and the capability to grab suspects around the world. Prince maintains he has nothing to do with that plan. But according to a source with extensive knowledge of Prince’s networks, Prince was working in parallel to assemble a team to help apprehend the men.

According to two people who have worked extensively with Prince in recent years, Prince has been contacting former Blackwater personnel who worked on a post-9/11 era CIA assassination program targeting Al Qaeda operatives. That program, which the Bush White House prohibited the CIA from disclosing to congressional intelligence committees, was revealed to Congress in 2009 by then-CIA Director Leon Panetta. The CIA says the program did not result in any assassinations.

Among the capabilities Prince offers is a network of deniable assets — spies, fixers, foreign intelligence agents — spread across the globe that could be used by the White House. “You pick any country in the world Erik’s been in, and it’s there,” said a longtime Prince associate. “They’re a network of very dark individuals.” The associate, who has worked extensively with Prince, then began rattling off places where the private spies and paramilitaries already operate — Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, “all across North Africa.”

Opaque contracting arrangements are typical for Prince, who became a lightning rod in his Blackwater days and now prefers to minimize controversy by operating in the shadows, disguising his involvement in sensitive operations with layers of subcontractors and elaborately crafted legal structures. “That’s his exact MO,” said the longtime Prince associate, adding that Prince consistently attempts to ensure plausible deniability of his role in U.S. and foreign government contracts.

“I have zero to do with any such effort and saying that I did/do would be categorically false,” Prince said in his email to The Intercept. “Knowingly publishing false information exposes you to civil legal action. The only effort I’ve quite publicly pitched is an alternative to Afghanistan.”

Erik Prince, then-CEO of Blackwater Worldwide, drives through campus where he could conduct training in Moyock, N.C. in 2008.

Photo: Gerry Broome/AP

The intelligence and covert action program would mark an unorthodox return to government service for Prince, the onetime CIA contractor who built a mercenary force that became notorious during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would also raise new questions about Prince’s foreign entanglements since he sold Blackwater.

In addition to Prince’s former assassination network, the hidden cadre of spies with no official cover — NOCs in CIA jargon — includes the assets of another key player in the Iran-Contra affair, CIA Officer Duane Clarridge, who died in 2016. Maguire, who worked under Clarridge as a young CIA paramilitary in Central America during the mid-1980s, took over the network of contract spies, who operate mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Last summer, as Prince pushed his public proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan, he and Maguire had broader ambitions, according to a person involved in the discussions. “The goal was to eventually get their network of NOCs worldwide, but they initially started with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

“Prince seems to be firing on a lot of cylinders and pitching overt and covert plans,” said a current intelligence officer who has closely monitored Prince’s career and been briefed on several of Prince’s recent efforts, including the proposals to Pompeo. The official declined to discuss details of the plans but pointed to Prince’s much-discussed pitch to privatize the war in Afghanistan as a smokescreen for offering other more controversial programs and operations.

Prince’s Afghanistan plan, which received substantial media attention and got a hearing at the highest levels of the Trump administration, “was brilliant because it changed the narrative and made him relevant,” the officer said, referring to Prince’s scandal- and investigation-plagued career at Blackwater. The officer also added that the very public Afghanistan pitch, replete with cable news interviews and op-eds, provided a legitimate reason “to justify meeting with people” at the White House, CIA, or other government agencies.

“Erik has no hobbies,” said the longtime Prince associate. “Counterterrorism is his hobby.”

In some ways, these plans mirror operations Prince led during the Bush-Cheney administration. When Prince was running Blackwater, he and a former CIA paramilitary officer, Enrique Prado, set up a global network of foreign operatives, offering their “deniability” as a “big plus” for potential Blackwater customers, according to internal company communications.

In a 2007 email, with the subject “Possible Opportunity in DEA—READ AND DELETE,” Prado sought to pitch the network to the Drug Enforcement Administration, bragging that Blackwater had developed “a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations.” He added, “These are all foreign nationals (except for a few cases where US persons are the conduit but no longer ‘play’ on the street), so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”

The longtime Prince associate said that the nexus of deniable assets has never gone away. “The NOC network is already there. It already exists for the better part of 15 years now,” he said.

Prince has long admired North and viewed his role in Iran-Contra as heroic, said the Prince associate. In 2007, Prince testified defiantly before Congress following the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, in which Blackwater operatives gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians, including women and children. Shortly after his testimony, Prince’s longtime friend, conservative California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised the Blackwater chief. “Prince,” Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.”

North, a Marine lieutenant colonel on the Reagan National Security Council, oversaw a scheme to divert proceeds from illicit arms sales to Iran to Contra death squads in Nicaragua. The resulting scandal became known as the Iran-Contra affair, and North was convicted of three felonies, though these convictions were later thrown out.

Both North and Maguire attended a small reception in 2014 celebrating Prince’s third marriage — to his former spokesperson Stacy DeLuke. “It was an intimate affair,” said the Prince associate. “Only Erik’s closest friends were invited to that reception.” On election night in 2016, DeLuke posted photos on social media from inside Trump headquarters.

On November 30, Prince testified behind closed doors before the House Intelligence Committee about his January trip to the Seychelles to meet with Mohammad bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, and a Russian fund manager close to Vladimir Putin. According to the Washington Post, Prince presented himself as an unofficial envoy of President-elect Trump. The Intercept reported last week that the fund manager was Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Prince repeatedly said that he did not remember the identity of the Russian, but on Thursday, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, Prince admitted that he did in fact meet with Dmitriev.

Prince may have revealed part of his strategy in a July 2016 radio interview with Steve Bannon, when he proposed recreating the CIA’s Phoenix Program, an assassination ring used in the Vietnam War, to battle the Islamic State. Prince said in the interview that the program would be used to kill or capture “the funders of Islamic terror, the wealthy radical Islamist billionaires funding it from the Middle East.”

Top photo: Blackwater founder Erik Prince arrives for a closed meeting with members of the House Intelligence Committee, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

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Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters weren’t on the beat?
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Prince’s longtime friend, conservative California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, praised the Blackwater chief. “Prince,” Rohrabacher said, “is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was.”
_____________

The Roman emperors ceased to trust their armies, so they turned their personal security detail into an army that was the strongest in the empire, and answered to no other authority. Of course it wasn’t long before the Praetorian guard realized that since the Emperor’s safety depended entirely upon them, and there was no power stronger than them, that the relationship was less “lord and servants” as “hostage and captors” , or when the Emperors didn’t do what they should, “corpse and assassins”.

Deep State fighting Deep State? That will be the day. But you have to hand it to them, they are clever. Whichever side of them you choose, they’ve got you do their bidding based on the info they give you. They’ll make sure it’s the same program you execute for them, from whatever seeming different side the info comes. Let’s see how good you really are at distinguishing the fake from the real “news” we the intelligence community hand you. Collin Powell couldn’t do it…

The “Deep State”? Just office buildings in Washington filled with bunnies. Floors and floors of bunnies. Bunnies sitting in cubicles. Pink bunnies on 9th floors, white bunnies on tenth. Not so scary after all.

North should be in prison already. He should die there like manson did. He is a traitor and went behind the back of congress… and never showed any remorse.. in fact he thought he was a patriot for Iran/contra… In the good old days, he would not have made it to trial, for treason.

This whole idea is what Nazis did… its what Mussolini did.. Its illegal and treasonous and they should all be thrown in jail awaiting trial just for colluding on this… This is conspiracy against the people of the United States and we demand justice… NOW.!!!

Since we can’t really check out the facts of this story, It is difficult to treat it as “real news” I think we should elect a government that we would be sure would not even consider such nefarious plans. We have to use our vote while it still has the modicum of power it still has, soon that too will be a illusion of power.

This Prinze guy is anything but a prince. He is a scary type guy who should be put behind a glass that says: “Break only in case of war”. He has already proven he can’t lead men given all the civilians that have met untimely deaths under his command. This secret police is very much out of Banana Republics and so just for that The Orange Hot-air Buffoon will approve it..

Why not try to “Make America GOOD again”? We used to be both a good and a great nation, but since the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy we have been “The Evil Empire.”

The Intelligence Community is already privatized and it’s been privatized since their inception.
If this is real , it would be the two households of Capulet and Montagues.
I guess this is what happens when the feuding families of FBI (Domestic Law Enforcement) and CIA (International Terrorism)
are forced to live under the same roof of Homeland Security.

Fun, juicy story, but the investigators couldn’t quite close the deal. It’s like a Vanity Fair piece — excellent, prurient gossip and reused material, but mainly empty calories. It was a nice trip down memory lane, too; these people are truly awful. The juxtaposition of the North/Prince photos was sheer genius!

Things are so broken now, so corrupted, so anti-democratic, so opposed to the people and their rights, etc. (thanks a lot Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama) that it is well past time to address the quintessential question: who guards the guards?

The only answer that history has provided is to have another, duplicate set of guards with the same exact mission, who have their guns also pointed at the other set of guards. And they have to jealously hate each other and compete for resources. Collusion between guards is the worst enemy of the people– it has and will lead to the worst form tyranny.

So, unless someone else has a better idea, I think forming another set of guards — outside the current, corrupted system– is a good idea.

Another sign of a 1933 Nazi Germany regime. The establishment of the Gestapo or secret society to undermine the US citizens and government for nafarious reasons. Bannon, Trump, and the GOP ilk who destroy democracy. Hitler reborn!

Erik Prince had done more for God and country this week than this blow-hard pundit has done in his entire life. The USA ‘s intel community has been infiltrated (by design) by the last administration and extreme measures must be taken to bypass that apparatus. This sounds like a great idea.

You can get with the America First agenda or get out of the way. Or, if you prefer, be steam-rollered by the new wave of optimism and growth kicked off by Trump. BTW, even even if Trump disappears tomorrow, it won’t matter, we are coming back stronger than ever and you are welcome to help and prosper. But you can not stop it now. MAGA!

The only people who are going to ‘prosper’ from this chimp and his cronies are the people who already have everything, and that aint you genius. You will see a modest cut in your taxes for a while unless you have deductions they are cutting, and then they will start talking about the deficit THEY created with their upwards wealth transfer. Everything after makes your life harder.

-fred- RE: “The voters justified the agenda in November.” Naaah, ‘voters’ didn’t justify Drumpf in November. The orange buffoon won the election due to gerrymandering and Russian interference. It’s clear to many of us that the ‘Electoral College’ failed at its intended purpose. Therefore, it’s why we need to go with the ‘popular vote’ only. Plus, the ‘popular vote’ would also eliminate the so-called “Superdelegates” as well. (Shrug)

Deep state spies vs derp state spies. Like spy vs spy in Mad Magazine years ago.

Yeah, let’s go to war with ourselves, why not?

Thanks to Eric Prince and Ollie North and a gang of extras. Why, folks like Bannon and Gorka and Roger Stone could become REAL Bond-like characters. I’m thinking more like Naked Gun, but what the hell, its all just taxpayer money, right?

Privatizing of intelligence is nothing new.However, making an end run around the intelligence agencies to pitch directly to the President is a different twist. I certainly don’t blame Mr. Trump for wanting to cut himself in on any deals, since they will be very lucrative ones. And, it could be argued, this does inject more democratic accountability into the military-industrial procurement process, since an elected official is making the decision, rather than some shadowy Pentagon procurement officer.

Third world dictatorships are much admired in Washington for their efficiency. There is a single person in charge, which simplifies the deal making process. I’m encouraged to see that Mr. Trump is adopting this model, rather than the murky swamp of vested interests which hitherto prevailed in Washington. Drain the Swamp!

What’s to stop a private corporation doing all this in secret and nobody will know except the chosen few? Who watches blackwater and all the rest of the private security firms to make sure they are following the law?

As if we know anything now, or have any say now, with the current corrupt structure in place. Where is your better idea? Or are you fine with the clandestine, jack-booted, Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama holdover thuggery continuing forever?

brilliant … a new army of presidential mercenaries to undermine the army of deep state mercenaries who are undermining the congressional mercenaries.
… the best you can say is that Prince and North are easily two of the most qualified and experienced personnel (ummmm … mercenaries) for the job.

There is a huge flaw in the fundamental basis of this article: that Erik Prince’s poor man’s CIA-for-hire operates “in the shadows” in all these countries. Prince may be dumb enough to *think* he’s existing in his own private secret world, and there are undoubtedly plenty of stupid capitalists who believe him when he tells them that, but in fact he and everyone associated with him are well known to the Mossad, the CIA, the Russian and Chinese intelligence services and every other intelligence service of all the major capitalist nation-states worth a damn. Anyone who thinks Prince and his gang of thugs operate “under the radar” in Russia, China, or Israel is dumber than a bag of hammers. That Pompeo and/or Trump – two extremely stupid people – believe every word that spews from the mouths of Erik Prince and Ollie North shouldn’t surprise anyone. The question is: why the hell do Jeremy Scahill and Matthew Cole believe this ridiculous bullshit, and what makes them think we’re all so stupid as to believe it too.

The billionaire rich-kid culture is just getting started.
In the past, even if you were rich you still had to be good at a thing in order to be in charge of it.
Now, you have capital being no longer willing to invest in production, and you the number one imperative to protect the leadership from getting exposed about not being aware or competent.
The CIA’s offense here was that they became aware that the rich-kid leadership is not competent.

Herbert McMaster and his deputy Dina Powell are both members of the Rockefeller CFR which has dominated US policy since WW2. Other members include Bill Clinton, John McCain, and George Soros. See lists in the CFR annual report.

Powell left and bet on McMaster being gone soon. And the rest of your names will be gone soon, too, to be taken by Satan. Drain the swamp means ejecting globalists from all reigns of power. It takes a while, which is frustrating, but Trump is on track. MAGA!

Yes, that’s about it. Trump the populist was unfairly maligned by those nefarious Democrats. The Military-Industrial Complex has to get rid of Trump because he poses such a dramatic threat to their interests. And this is all driven by an “unhinged” refusal to accept Hillary Clinton’s defeat. Just ask Kellyanne Conway. Or Trump himself.

“The Intercept”, known Leftist Blog, tries to follow the Dictates of George Soros : Throw out as much CACA as possible to Sow Doubt in the Minds of those “Knuckle Dragging Rubes” aka. Deplorables so we can Advance OUR Brand of Justice. Can we say, Swing and a Miss, Yes I believe we can. LMAO!

How is it that “the right” can be consistently so badly informed – mis-informed even? It’s amazing.

First, REAL “Leftists” can tell you that The Intercept is NOT a left-leaning rag.

Second, “Deplorables” are the people of the left – that’s who Hillary was attacking, NOT anyone on the right.

As for the story, it’s about the potential creation of a new Gestapo – done for pretty much the same reasons – and not actually about Trump. Note how many people in this comment thread are talking about the apparent battle raging between two factions of “the deep state” – THAT is what this about.

But you can keep on hating in ignorance. Of course, you’d be better off figuring out who your real enemy is – the ultra-rich – the same enemy we have on “the left.”

Oops, what a shame — that the leftish, progressive-lite, and pseudo alt-media was so stupid and ineffective in using the wrong term “deep-state” in trying (but not succeeding) in tarring the elitist forces of; evil, looting, wars, global warming, and all other subordinate ‘issues’, more serious “symptom problems”, and our entire “ailing social order” [Zygmunt Bauman] with the term “deep state” — since that vague term has not been co-op by the very EMPIRE which the left was actually trying to expose, protest against, ‘Resist’, confront and ultimately over-throw.

WOW, What a monument faux-pas for the left.

What the principled progressive; anti-war, anti-Wall Street, pro-democracy, and serious socialist left (not Bernie, with his vacuous “Political Revolution” against what, Bernie?) didn’t even try to understand or leverage as the only effective ‘competitive strategy’ and matching ‘strategic narrative’ (of “Political Revolution Against EMPIRE” ), is that you can’t confront and successfully overcome, over-throw, or even ignite an effective Second American people’s peaceful and patriotic “Political/economic and socialist Revolution Against EMPIRE” without accurately calling the effin thing an EMPIRE.

Only by; calling-out, exposing, shouting-down, recognizing, diagnosing, and firing a; “Shout heard round the world” to ignite an essential Political “Revolution Against EMPIRE” can the forces of democracy overcome an EMPIRE —- calling it a “deep-state”, “oligarchy” (like gutless Bernie), plutocracy, fascism, totalitarianism, “inverted totalitarianism” (which sounds like the inverse), or any of the dozens of other useless, inaccurate, and now provably INeffective pseudo-academic wrong ‘names’ like “deep-state” will just back-fire on the left and be used by this first in world history; ‘effectively-Disguised’, ‘truly-Global’, ‘dual-party Vichy’, and ‘Capitalist-fueled’ EMPIRE which just pulled this narrative judo move of calling the forces of ‘we the Revolutionary people’ by the name we stupidly called the EMPIRE.

WakeTF-up, people!

“Revolution Against Empire” is the only thing that ever over-threw EMPIRES —- but before you make another stupid mistake this Revolution today can only work if it is totally non-violent — don’t make a second mistake after this dozzie!

You can’t have a bloodless “Revolution Against Empire” — except in your little fantasy world where anything less than such non-violent nothing-burger cannot succeed. The Global Financial Elite and the military-industrial complex are two separate entities that have been joined at the hip since 1942 — when Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — the predecessor of what is known today as the formidable CIA.

The real question you should be asking is whether Donald J. Trump needs this intelligence agency to get real intel — that hasn’t been “scrubbed.” You look at the way we’ve been lied about Afghanistan in war that has been going on for sixteen years. That’s only because we took a break in 1989 after driving out the Russians with the help one of the best CIA NOCs in the agency’s history — Osama Bin Laden.

One can only wonder now, if the CIA intentionally abandoned Bin Laden and his band of Mujahideen fighters. It seems awfully strange that the man who single-handedly recruited a force that repelled the Soviet Army at the height of its power — was purposely forgotten like an Iran-Contra scandal document that stayed hidden while everything else was shredded.

Yet here we are today — a $1 trillion Iraq War later — having learned the lesson that Barack “I assassinated Osama” Obama used to the advantage of his intelligence pals. That being turned down by Congress to authorize an armed defense of innocent civilians being slaughtered by the Syrian government is actually a GOOD thing. Because now, we can go OVER the heads of “on the record” politicians and conduct a covert drone war — with 10 times the number of air strikes that Dubya Bush ordered — and much of it won’t see a Syria OR an Iraq.

Nope, most of it landed in that country where boots on the ground were simply “unavailable” because our military forces were maintaining order in Iraq. It’s the place where the first U.S. Secretary of Defense to require a Congressional “waiver” since 1947 made history — by ordering the Air Force to drop the largest bomb we have — the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) — for the first time in U.S. history. You guessed it. Afghanistan.

There’s no doubt this is an Empire. That much is clear. But the best “shot heard around the world” that DOESN’T involve guns, tanks, bombs, drones and submarines has already been fired. The gunman is one Edward J. Snowden — and his part in the war has already concluded. Now it’s up to us to refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Game on.

Neutral Observer, thanks for you counter-opinion of both the seminal issue of a ‘strategic narrative’ to foster successful Revolution Against Empire, and for your insane and suicidal suggestion of the actual ‘competitive strategy’ of having to use violence.

A lot of US intelligence is already privatized. The industrial war profiteers got in on that scam years ago. Another way to siphon profit off of the US credit card. Prince is just trying weasel way into more profits.

Trump is undermining his presidency with no help from the Deep State, it’s just one foot in the mouth after the other. Behind the scenes, it’s a full-scale looting operation which isn’t getting much attention as the oligarchs and plutocrats are fattening on it.

Trump can’t trust the Deep State to follow his orders to use certain weapons at hand. Privatizing these assets would ensure suitcase nukes and bio-engineered plagues are delivered whenever the urge presents itself.

“Hi, is that Jeremy and Matt at the Intercept? Yeah, hi guys, what it is .. we’re considering spying on the intelligence agencies. We wanted to get the message out there so they’ll be prepared for us and be able to put systems in place to counter us if we decide to do it. Can you let them know what we’re considering doing? Great, thanks guys”

Why are you struggling to name your sources?! You didn’t list that they asked for anonymity. “This person said this, that person said that.” Naming sources is so fundamental, it makes me wonder why you’d leave them out on at least 3 different sources in the first third of one article. Come on!

Hoo boy what kooky ideas! Since Congress has to appropriate the money for these schemes of Prince’s and that would have to be under controlling statutes of US law, how the hell do they think rogue NGO stuff could even happen? “Off the shelf” non-US gov stuff paid for by the US taxpayer? I’m afraid this is really a bit of a stretch even for the Trump admin. I really think Mr. Prince does in fact need to find another hobby besides what he now wastes his time on.

The cognitive dissonance in some of the posters here is striking. Did you all miss the memo about how Israel is spying on Americans’ or that Israel also tried to swing the election?

I’m not too worried about Trump- It’s this new Operation MHCHAOS that has me bothered-but Democrats mostly
y don’t seem to worry about that-because they are in bed with the same “deep state” douchebags that Trump is having trouble with.

Good article. Awful idea. A private spy force with Prince in the mix, answering to Trump would be an absolute disaster. He could easily sic his dogs on American citizens that oppose him, supported by his fervorish base that will believe everything he says and does. Spying becomes black bags over heads and screeching vans. Then the Argentina style “disappeareds”. Very dangerous times we live in, godspeed.

The end of tax deductibility for luxury mortgages and for state and local taxes is a direct attack on the political class and the deep state, as is the rise of new media. A rival IC would be as well. Crush them! It’s a peasant revolt, even if some rogue billionaires have joined it.

This is an odd coincidence (or maybe it isn’t. You tell me.), but I didn’t know who or what was Amyntour Group- the intelligence contractor who allegedly employs John Maguire. So I looked it up and Google said that it is located in Whitefish, MT. That sounded familiar. Wasn’t Whitefish Energy that bogus utility company that only had two employees, but got the contract to repair the Puerto Rican electrical grid? I looked that up too. Sure enough. They are also from Whitefish MT which is also Ryan Zinke- the Secretary of the Interior’s hometown. Wikipedia says that Whitefish, MT has a population under 7,000 which makes it about the size of the small town I live in. That seems like a lot of heavy hitters and intrigue for a town that small. What else stinks in Whitefish. Might be a story there, Intercept team. I’d read it.

…Back in the early 1990s, I was engaged to and nearly married a woman who has family in Whitefish and we went to visit a time or two. It’s a SMALL town! My take was that the only reason every body might not know absolutely everybody else was because the houses are widely scattered around – it’s more multi-acre lots than suburbs – and they’d only meet when in town getting supplies and such. Or, maybe through kids being raised, and so forth…

This is an interesting search. If you can believe Google, then Amyntour is in a fairly mundane looking building next to Glacier Sotheby’s International Realty. This *definitely* does not look like the spook buildings I’m used to looking at there (which would be covered in cooling towers and surrounded by cable and internet company buildings on all sides, plus the occasional ATCC or something). It’s on the other side of the railroad tracks from Spencers’ parents’ tenants’ building that was the target of pickets; the parents themselves apparently live at “a resort” nearby that was listed as the National Policy Institute address but I didn’t get further than that easily.

If spies have any serious infrastructure in the area it seems like it must be hidden down a mine shaft or something. Maybe they just come there on vacation? I bet spies take a lot of “working vacations”…

Oh come on guys. You have probably written the worst piece of swill I have seen ever pop up in my Google news feed. I’m sorry let me change the word swill to s***. Completely irresponsible. Do you guys actually know somebody in the IC or are you trying to be like spooky little bad boys. Do you honestly think that McMaster really did the s*** that you’re describing he did. Grow up put your big boy pants on get your thumbs out of your mouth and start being responsible journalist.. Or better yet just keep writing the snarky Saturday Night Live ask bits. They’re actually really great and I’ll come back and read the site for that

Trump is not smart enough to survive establishing despotism. Once you’re in, gotta kill your henchmen that brought you, men like Prince. However, Pence is a killer, sanctioned by the lord himself. Hell, doubt he’s ever been decently laid, no respect for life. If despotism wins the US, it will be “christian”.

I predict Pence will be very weak compared to Trump.
Whereas Trump gets away with everything, the first time Pence even looks at the camera the wrong way people will start saying how soon will Pence resign.

Fascist much? Trump already has his own Brownshirts (anti-free speech cadres whipped up by the likes of Bannon, Spencer, and Duke to attack universities), his own SS (private security who beat up protesters and journalists and carry out other actions for him unconstrained by official checks and balances), and now he just needs his own Gestapo (a private internal intelligence agency to purge the government of any entrenched opposition to his glorious agenda). But I guess it’s all justified.

This does not scare me all that much as Trump is an incompetent administrator and would fuck it up. However, what if this gives the idea to US oligarch billionaires to create their own private militias and intelligence groups like Ukrainian oligarchs. Instant armies of Brown Shirts ready to be put at Trump’s disposal.

Putin, a master chess player in a country where political chess has been refined by some of the best, an d most ruthless players in history, has played a master stroke.

A master stroke.

He, and his KGB colleagues have installed Drumpf using a skillful strategy. This is another move in his long game to destroy the United States from the inside. Putin has had intel assets in this country for a very long time. The TV show “The Americans” is just one glimpse: they’ve had assets researching just what the internal situation is in the USA.

They know there is a core of fascist sycophants just waiting for their Strong Man. Drumpf is that Strong Man. Putin doesn’t care a whit about Drumpf as a person. Heck, he’s probably been laughing at Drumpf for a long time, as Drumpf provides a conduit for dirty Russian money laundering and access to the US.

Putin and his minions understand the psyche of the American lumpen proles better than we do. These are the dregs of society for whom any weapon is fair game in the effort to remake America in Drumpf’s image. Simply remaking the US in that orange cretin’s image is the goal of Putin: to destroy the US’s power and prestige on the global stage.

When the State is the enemy and must be replaced by a ‘paramilitary’ state (paid by the state?) we have what I might loosely define as a coup. This rapid unravelling of the apparatus of the State is, to say the least, unsettling for the rest of us in the world who are not American. Many people in the US, I expect, continue to believe that the structure of the State is robust enough to weather such storms (and there have been other storms which can act as evidence for this supposition). However, the State can devolve very quickly. It is much more fragile than might be thought. And it’s unravelling quickly.

Good eye. That is one of the weaknesses in this silly fiction that the Intercept crew bit into, obviously a fake story meant to discredit the Intercept among more discerning readers. In fact there are so many holes in this story, a person wonders what kind of retarded numbskull would buy any of it.

…with gov. employees swearing to uphold the Constitution and the current admin. throwing the Constitution out the window, it only makes sense to have your own private army with some sort of “contract” with the agency…we will/are paying for it already, if it’s being reported, it already is…reporting is always playing catch-up…

…This is FAR from the first administration to “throw the constitution out the window.” Dick Cheney is on record of calling the Constitution a “goddamned piece of paper”. I think W said something similar, though not the exact same words…

Republican types lean that way. Remember it was the Honorable President Ike who warned us about the MILC (the L – for legislative – was removed from the last draft because, as he wrote by hand in the margins of his speech, he was giving the speech in Congress and he thought it inappropriate to call them out in their own house). His warning was that POLITICIANS were a threat from within – whether sought or un-sought! Such a nice guy to warn us about the enemy within.

Ollie North would be a reliable and loyal agent. He never turned on Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal.

The CIA should be dissolved. There is no oversight controlling it. The agency could start WWIII and no one would know it and no one would be held responsible. Also, the close ties with Israel’s Mossad leave too much wiggle room for criminal actions.

Laughable really to think Trump is interested in anything but his own self aggrandizement and money, but look at the bright side, when his presidency comes crashing down due to its greed, stupidity and corruption, you can always move to Russia. I suspect you see it as a shining example of democracy and transparency.

Wow, lets roll the news real from Nazi Germany in the 30’s…remember the brown shirts and then the SS. Trump clearly wants to be a dictator. Prince and North are the perfect Gestapo like fellas to help him. What’s next Crystal Nacht for those who support democracy, the rule of law and the first amendment. If you think this is a good thing you should move to North Korea or even Russia…you will fit right in.

Of all the “pro to-fascist” actions of the Trump Administration (assault on the freedom of the press and freedom of religion), this is the most frightening. A “secret intelligence” service, free to operate beyond the purview of the people’s representatives, reporting only to the Administration (the President), is effectively a secret police, similar to the Geheimstaatspolizei (Gestapo) of Nazi Germany. This must be fought with every ounce of the people’s representatives.

Wow! What a great idea! Perhaps they could also recruit G. Gordon Liddy as an expert consultant who has had extensive experience in the task of getting at the truth about the Democratic Party, the Federal Civil Service, the FBI, the CIA and other foreign agents and enemies of America. Times have changed since he was last in the field. But not that much!

I seem to remember another fascist leader who had something similar, he called his special folks SS troopers, and no surprise that a fellow like Trump would want his own loyal to him alone special secret police to use against his enemies, doubt congress, senate will allow this one, it smacks of Neo-Nazi tactics!

Its about time!!! He has so many enemies its ridiculous! They sure don’t mind spying on him! I think we need to revamp the FBI, CIA and whatever black funds are funding black operations before we lose our country!!!

I hope he’s able to quickly cripple and jail the creeps that are against ‘M.A.G.A.’…he’s been very good at it already – even with all the negativity surrounding him…you nay say’rs will be eating crow BIG TIME soon.

Oh great! Now he wants to be surrounded alternative spies to go with alternative truth. Who does he expect to pay for the wanna be spies? Not tax payers. So the disgusting idea will have to be privately financed. Along with the private army and security forces he will no doubt want. Two bit dictator in his own fantasy world.

It’s hard enough holding government responsible, but the guy who’s private army shot up a town square, murdering dozens of Iraqi civilians, claimed immunity from American law, then changed their corporate name, tried to do an end run around the CIA to help our liar in chief deal secretly with Russia and won’t talk to congress? Eh…no.

I for one think the CIA and NSA should be disbanded. If we think we need something like what they do, we can organize it better – and using better people. And when I say “better people” what I mean is using people with a completely different mind-set, vision of purpose and so on. I do not expect many people could make the transition from what we have now to what we should have…

A private version of them?! HA! Hell No! But, as I say, we’ll need new legislation, I think.

A private version versus a state version, going head-to-head might well illustrate to the masses why we should have neither – that’s my hope anyway.

Well Art, you and a few of the others here are part of the right wing cult. Truth doesn’t matter, the Constitution doesn’t matter, just your paranoia and ego. The “man” lost by 3 million votes, should have been in jail multiple times for rape, fraud, failure to pay his workers, using illegals and the list continues. But, you cult members will go to your grave defending this pile of trash. Congratulations.

You obviously haven’t bothered to look at any of the rest of my comments. And, you obviously see the world through a binary, black-or-white lens.

Most likely you’re a vagina voter who’s in deep denial about why his preferred candidate lost. Well, ya know, I know how it feels to lose because MY preferred candidate didn’t win, either, and she was a damned site better choice than Hillary.

An irony is that you project onto others what you yourself likely are – a cult member.

Note also that I’m NOT defending Trump, I just said I don’t believe his end game is dictatorship. Only a true moron could think that. For one thing, our society has over 200 years of strong traditions in supporting the Constitution, Trump cannot change the constitution, and our military would never stand for him or anyone else trying to do so via non-Constitutional means. It’s an idiotic proposition – not even Trump would think that, only angry, butthurt cult-members whose cult leader lost would come up with such baseless garbage.

Further, it can easily be argued Hillary should be in prison for worse crimes, including “war crimes” related to what she did and didn’t do as Secretary of State, and for her Pay To Play schemes and Crony Disaster Capitalism as she and Bill raped the people Haiti via their “leadership” using The Clinton Foundation as the means of awarding lucrative contracts to their ultra-rich buddies. Face it, your candidate was one of the two most disliked POTUS candidates in US history – and the other one is today President. Too bad you can’t see that Both R and D gave us shit sandwiches in the 2016 cycle and told us the other one was worse.

If you were smart, you’d get over your butthurt, realize that our common enemy is The Ultra-Rich – who manipulated you and millions more, and who keep We, The People from having any effective control over OUR country.

I’m not sure the authors understand what the Deep State is, which is odd in this context since Col. North helped tip the hand of the Deep State when he testified before Congress. He threatened to expose the Continuity of Government programs which helped form the nucleus of the Deep State.

The idea has its own built in irony… given there is already a coup d’ etat taking place with “stay behinds” in gov against the current POTUS.

That’s where we are… and how disconnected from an understanding of how our government is structured average Americans are right now.

Americans are cool with polished polite socially palatable lawlessness. But being a caustic immature outsider to the beltway is unacceptable.

The sewer pit that is DC wants TPP back, and they want criminal economic and sexual predators left alone… and controllable weaklings with real closet skeletons in positions of power… in other words… they want what we have had for the past 24 plus years or so left in place

Just what Trump needs. A private intelligence army to do his bidding without any consent from other US branches. Prince has the same autocratic desires as Trump and is a hawks hawk. We will become the country of war. It will be our chief export. I do not trust the president, his party, his administration, and all those “Americants” that support his agenda to create unrest. I fear that only a 2018 congress will be able to put the checks and balances in place to avoid this destruction to continue.

You’re not complaining, you’re just making a very valid and patriotic point – with perfect grammar and spelling if I may add. Hopefully, once this is in place, they’ll come for you first just to test your patriotism, how the program works and such. The grammar doesn’t matter, Trump didn’t well in that subject either even though he attended an ivy league elementary school.

They’re not spies, they’re gestapo. If he tries this, it’ll be one more charge to throw at him. I’m sure the adults running other countries will have NO problem picking these losers out, and either arresting them, or deporting them.

51%? “The educated ones” Jesus man, are you the head of your branch of the right wing cult? 33% of the least educated, religious fanatics and paranoid ammosexuals, racists, sexist and just plain stupid are behind this predatory grafter. The rest of the country recognizes him for what he is. Those who don’t aren’t paying attention.

Trump is off and running to create his own secret police. What could be next? Secret handshakes, coded messages on toilet paper, disguises to make the operatives look like orange meanies (sorry have that already)

It’s time. The President has to clean out all the no-go zones build up around our government by feces eating rats and dirty scumbag terrorists who had created their own Deep State feifdoms, and take our country back, and not a minute should be lost. That’s why we elected him, to clean out all the no-go zones filled with scumbag Deep State cartel.

They SHOULD combat the Deep State. It is anathema to the Constitution and the duly elected government. They violate their oath of office when they attempt to subvert the President with their treasonous “resist” crap. They need to be thrown in jail for their subversion. Who elected THEM to decide what our national interests are? Nobody, that’s who.

Well, he (EP) surely would know how to appeal to and convince the man in the Oval.

Giving this kind of power to a man who enjoys being cruel, can do so with other people’s money, and who will spend the rest of his life seeking revenge for the slights, insults, embarrassments, and petty fights of the past fifty years makes me recoil.

It’s war: established black-ops versus wannabe black-ops. You yourself said it regarding keeping their plan secret. They didn’t, very likely exactly as you suggest, specifically because it’s war between the two groups.

IE: They MIGHT have been able to keep it secret were it not for the “established” spies “leaking.”

Wow, the defense of this horrific plan by the Russian trolls and the Trump dupes on this Thread is fascinating. The Russians, I understand. You are being paid by a corrupt dictator to spew this garbage out. The Americans who actually support this kind of Orwellian spy scheme? Words almost fail me, but here’s few descriptions for you—deluded, dupes, haters, traitors, fascists and fools. You would all have made excellent little Nazi’s back in Hitler’s Germany.

We are approaching the J Edgar Hoover FBI scenario only worse. Hoover wanted to control everything, the current DOJ is aligned with the DNC and the old guard (deepstate) who don’t want their good thing upset. Its amazing that the American people sensed this and elected Trump rather than the deep state staple Hillary. None of them saw this coming. Now they are in full attack mode with the MSN going all out as well. I have zero trust of the DOJ, believe next to nothing the media says and their lackeys in the Democratic party. I would not blame Trump if he instituted his own intelligence as he can’t trust anyone in the CIA/FBI ect.. Thats a pretty sad state of affairs. We are all Americans and there are huge threats out there right now and yet these people are hell bent on causing major disruption in our government for their own personal gain. The people are not happy, as long as they can vote I’m betting they will continue to throw out the old guard at every opportunity. Except of course, in the brain dead Liberal bastions like NYC and California.

Is Donald Trump truly being perceived as a bread-and-butter threat by the deep state and its intelligence apparatus? In order to answer this question, one must first establish a baseline from which Trump’s foreign policy posture can be objectively assessed; after all, it is the post-911 global war on terror that has caused the US intelligence budget to double in size to a present day level of seventy billion. Thus it would seem necessary to determine if the Trump administration is agitating for an expansion of the GWOT or aiming to diminish its scope.

An article entitled “Trump administration has a dangerous argument for unlimited war” was recently published by The Hill in which it was reported:

the 2001 bill — a 60-word document created years before ISIS organized — remains sufficient to authorize U.S. military intervention in dozens of countries in Africa and the Middle East. They can range from large-scale wars like the 16-year fight in Afghanistan to under-the-radar projects like the deadly mission in Niger which hovered over this hearing.

The secretaries would also not engage any suggestion of a more tailored war authorization designed with specific threats in mind. They rejected all geographic or chronological limits on the president’s power to wage wars of choice. Mattis said he’d appreciate “a statement of continued congressional support,” but any real exercise of the legislature’s war power was clearly unwelcome.

The White House would not go to these lengths arguing for the unlimited power to expand the GWOT absent the intention to do so. In fact, the Intercept itself has reported on the its most recent expansion into western Africa. As the explosive growth in the US intelligence budget has been predicated upon the need to counter the global spread of terror, it only stands to reason that that this trend will continue unabated into the foreseeable future.

How then has the CIA fared in this post-911 world specifically?

Edward Snowden leaked a budget request for 2013 that showed intelligence officials wanted to spend 28 percent of their money on the CIA. By contrast, a budget mistakenly released 20 years ago showed that the CIA was being allotted just over 10 percent of intel dollars. Although the US Intelligence budget is classified, the expansion of America’s drone wars abroad suggest that the CIA is continuing to enjoy an ever greater share of the budget under president Trump as it was widely reported that he intended to increase CIA drone strikes.

Secondly, it is currently being reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is about to be replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Furthermore, Pompeo is now publicly characterizing Trump’s tweets as having the proven potential to have “a real-world impact on our capacity to understand what’s going on in other places in the world.”

“That is, our adversaries responded to those tweets in ways that were helpful to us to understand command and control issues, who’s listening to what messages, how those messages are resonating around the world.”

Again: Does the foregoing even remotely suggest that President Trump and the deep state are at odds with one another?

Notice how the article doesn’t mention how Hussein Obama used the FBI to SPY on political opponents and then passed that info on to the DNC and Clinton. As always its ok for the LEFT to abuse power and get away from it but when others try and do even a fraction of that they are threatened with impeachment.

It would be fairly amusing if the Intercept has fallen for a Project Veritas operation. Not as amusing as the blowback from Trump trying to run ‘private global covert operations’ though. The most probable outcome would be the further isolation of the U.S. from the international community of nations.

Your so-called “international community of nations” has done nothing besides dig its hand deeper into the pocket of US taxpayers and farther down our throats with unconstitutional treaties that only serve to trample our national sovereignty and bow to the power-hungry globalists.

No, not at all. I am all in favor of the collapse of the bloated corrupt American imperial system. The repercussions might be a bit tough at first, but in the long run, the American middle class will benefit from this.

Obama was the fig leaf over corrupt imperial practices; Trump is full frontal nudity.

The way things were leaked, subverted and now the investigation, who would blame the Trump administration. Between BushClintonBushObama they have had a long time to put politically active liberals in every position in all agencies. It appears to me they just want conflict and even war if it grows their departments. I think we have a lot of fake intelligence, especially from the Human Intelligence crowd.

I sure hope he does. The deep state wants him out because they cannot control him. We need a good house cleaning anyway. The agencies (17) of them transport drugs…cause coups to happen…spy on all of us…put dictators in troubled countries….zMost are not accountable for their actions. I believe Kennedy was murdered by CIA and 9/11 was not done by outsiders. This country needs a good house cleaning within our intelligence agencies.

No, but the battle it fosters might – the battle, of course, between the established and the new-comer intelligence “agencies.” If they go to war with one another, it might well help the public decide it’s time to “clean house” and force it to happen. One can hope, anyway!

They don’t believe in our laws or constitution. North should have been in prison not being lauded as a patriot. Prince is a mercenary who will do whatever for a dollar – the law and constitution be damned. When will they be brought to justice for subverting our constitution and rule of law?

All you have to do is pay attention to history and I don’t mean ancient or even very old history.

In 1925 Germany, Hitler was head of the NAZI Party and the SS was created. This originally was a Paramilitary security force which grew to become a multi million man force which consisted of both elite military units numbering nearly a half million men as well as political and security sections, the latter being primarily responsible for enacting Hitler’s Final Solution, i.e., the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, disabled and other “subhuman” categories of mankind.

The Gestapo, which was created in 1933 – prior to Hitler’s ascendance to total power – functioned as his Secret Police and eventually came under the control of Heinrich Himmler and the SS.

The way in which Trump has acted from even before his being sworn in as President, is significantly similar to Hitler’s rise to power.

One difference is the magnitude of support Hitler gained prior to his actual election due to the much more dire economic conditions in Germany caused by the extremely onerous conditions of the World War II peace treaty imposed primarily by France and, to a slightly lesser degree, England.
The difference in Trump’s rise is that the very great technological advances in the dissemination of “information” over the last 100 years, has enabled the ease in which lies can be presented as truth in such a clever and believable bombardment to a disgruntled and ignorant minority of the population.

That capability and the combination of a highly flawed and disliked opposition candidate and a totally complicit GOP party willing to defend and propagate any and every action no matter how vile, unethical or illegal, has actually led this nation to the cusp of the same manner of government takeover that will lead to the abolishment of anything resembling a democratic republic

Tim, unfortunately you’ve fallen victim to NAZI propaganda. You refer to “dire economic conditions in Germany caused by the extremely onerous conditions of the World War II peace treaty imposed primarily by France and, to a slightly lesser degree, England.” Hitler regularly blamed the Treaty of Versailles for Germany’s economic ills as a way of fueling hatred for England and France, but the truth is Germany exited WWI with enormous war debts, which is largely financed with loans from American banks. When the Great Depression hit, not only did Germany’s economy go into a tailspin, along with much of the rest of the world, but it also found its American loans recalled. The reparations, while not trivial, were not the actual cause of Germany’s economic woes. I point this out because it shows how inaccurately you understand history. As for your assertion that Trump is in any way like Hitler, that is beyond reprehensible. Read some actual history. Hitler was a poorly-educated ruffian from the lower classes. He was also superstitious, ignorant, and a social deviant, entirely incapable of forming a healthy relationship with a woman. Until he found his true calling in life — leader of the NAZI party, Hitler was also an abject failure. Trump on the other hand was born wealthy, has a superb education, and has built a worldwide business empire worth many billions of dollars. Trump used precisely zero of Hitler’s heavy-handed methods of winning his election, and as President he has proved himself both honest and capable — traits nobody would attribute to Hitler. I realize you are angry, but I’m afraid you have allowed your emotions to color your opinions. If you want others to take you seriously, you might hue a bit closer to the facts.

Sam Spade, in describing Hitler, line for line, you described Trump. His entire method of his run for the Presidency was from the Hitler play book. Suggesting some one use the 2nd amendment to remedy Hillary Clinton. Using immigrants as the enemy, making false and hateful claims against the press, encouraging his followers to be violent with protesters. Then there is the moral stains treatment of woman. Nothing you said about this criminal grafter is true and all of what you said is demonstrably false. Trump is not well educated, yes he was born into wealth by his criminal father, who was wealthy because of his criminal father. His wealth comes from inheritance, but mostly cheating investors and employees. You cult members of the right live in a world of fantasies and lies. Your not patriots as you love to vomit at every opportunity. You’re treasonous sycophants, nothing more.

I have no love for the current or any former POTUS. But you should read the Devil’s Chessboard. It will shed light on your understanding of Hitler and the rise of the Nazi’s. It all goes beck to American Industrialists who are still beneficiaries of WWII and all the war resources profited from.

I don’t really like this, but did the Obama hacks in the intelligence community who are constantly trying to undermine the new Administration really think their actions would have no consequences? If they cannot support their new boss, these Obama hacks should do the honorable thing and resign, then publicize their differences. Every president must have an intelligence community he can trust not to shade facts or undermine him.

How are they undermining? tRUMP and his minions are doing a great job of undermining and ruining our country. This so-called deep state doesn’t need to do anything even if they existed. Bunch of insane comments on this thread.

Get over it snowflakes. Broom Hildary and Billy Hornydog Clinton are never going to be President and an illegal “Shadow President”. Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States. President Obama has already resumed his community organizing domestically as a race hustler keeping Black people fearful, angry, resentful, and even hostile to white people in order to keep them on the Democrat voting block as a dependency class. And he has gone on the speaking circuit internationally getting filthy rich undermining and badmouthing his own country and undermining foreign policy while advocating one world government under the United Nations in order to save the planet from GLO-BULL warming.

Stop government sponsored GangStalking, formerly the Pheionex Program.
Corrupt agencies are using military grade RF weapons on innocent civilians.
DEW’s maim, torture and slow kill covertly.
GangStalking =Pheionex Program.
We’ve reported this to The Intercept for years.
These weapons were used in Iraq, “Iraqi Poppers ” and at Cuban Embassy.

I’ve also experience this government torture program; reported it to The Intercept (prior to Reality sell out); ACLU and EFF. No lawyers will touch it. Hands off; non-response; disbelief the standard response. Each party engages ans supports the conduct as long as the target is on the other side of the division bell.

Sure have, even sent documented video, evidence and cases to verify. Years later all’s we hear is silence and crickets. Don’t worry, one day when all these treasonous programs and terrorists are exposed The Intercept will be the first to write an article “claiming” they broke the story. Don’t contact the ACLU, they know and are hiding it also while they beg for money.

Greenwald had (and perhaps still has) a spreadsheet of the email addresses of at least some of those who have been targeted. He promised “fireworks” that never happened, but he was obviously convinced to do nothing. (Five people were profiled on TI and that was it.) Meanwhile, people are being stalked and harassed — and are fighting for their lives.

Given the depth and magnitude of corruption and politicization of Federal “law enforcement” and “intelligence” agencies, and their on going attempted coup d’etat, the President has no rational choice but to look for other sources of information.

As always, the President will disavow any knowledge of their actions. Good luck Oliver.

BTW, prior to WWII, Winston Churchill and his allies set up a private, off the books intelligence service.

ISN’T THIS SOMETHING SIMILAR TO THE MCCARTHY ERA RANTING AND RAVING? THE REASON OUR GOVERNMENT IS SET UP ON A MULTI-PARTY BASIS, IS TO AVOID GOING VERY FAR OFF-CENTER IN OUR EVEN-KEELED LEVEL-HEADED DEMOCRACY. THANK YOU.

Consider the source of those comments. I’m willing to bet the military has unleashed its internet trolls on this site which is not a surprise considering that the founders are persona non grata to the USG.

Luis.
Maybe this should have been written in Spanish so your reading comprehension skills might be a little stronger that way. Global Private Spy organization=Secret Police. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck
swims like a duck, well then it must be a duck. “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet”. In this case, would still smell as foul.

The CIA is not working for American’s and is very evil.A few families run the world and they need to be stopped…. Everything our forefathers fought against has become in America….. Putin is the worlds best leader

I’m not sure it’s possible to come up with a worse plan for the president to receive agenda-less intelligence. If the problem is with the Deep State career CIA desk jockeys, they are subject to routine polygraphs so announce the entire agency will be asked to submit to one and see who decides on early retirement. There are many ways to weed out those conspiring to work against the president short of creating a new group that will ultimately work in its own interest.

If there are, in fact, ‘“deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency’ then start firing them from their jobs if they are suspected. As we see from the sexual harassment scandals, suspicion is enough. There is no need to investigate. They can be replaced.

So some private contractors have an inside line to the Trump Administration and are seeking to profit from it, that’s about the extent of what can seen here. Too many anonymous sources and official denials to take it very seriously, though.

It’s probably just the usual con artists trying to puff up their importance and get a slice of the MIC pie. Notably they wouldn’t have access to CIA’s black budget or any other federal line of cash (since that’s all ‘Deep State’ or, in other words, ‘official bureaucracy’). So, where have we seen something like this before? Donald Trump’s alter ego and partner in crime, Hillary Clinton, perhaps?

In 2011 and 2012, Hillary Rodham Clinton received at least 25 memos about Libya from Sidney Blumenthal, a friend and confidant who at the time was employed by the Clinton Foundation. The memos, written in the style of intelligence cables, make up about a third of the almost 900 pages of emails related to Libya that Mrs. Clinton said she kept on the personal email account she used exclusively as secretary of state. Some of Mr. Blumenthal’s memos appeared to be based on reports supplied by American contractors he was advising as they sought to do business in Libya.

The likes of Sideny Blumenthal and Erik Prince are hustlers, not much more than that, seeing to inflate their own wealth and importance. There are plenty of paranoid megalomaniacal politicians willing to listen to them, however. Such as Clinton and Trump.

private (ideological) spy networks already exist embedded in our intel agencies. the director of the agency determines their activities success…. strong new directors are able to ferret them out and activate their networks.. not so with the doj, thus far

This would be a step toward an American Gestapo. Such an extra-legal organization in the hands of Trump would be nothing less than a step toward the destruction of our democracy. This man has to be removed from office. If he tries this, a charge of sedition would be in order.

The CIA is very, very corrupt. They clearly haven’t had America’s best interest in mind in a very long time. The best solution isn’t a network of counter-spies. The best solution is to eliminate the CIA.

If you are going to set-up a CIA watchdog, I certainly don’t trust Pompeo and North to run the operation. They have the right idea though. The intelligence agencies, intelligence contractors, and global security firms are the biggest threat to America. They’re much worse than any individual terrorist group.

btw – It’s not just that the CIA is undermining Trump. It’s that they’re actively trying to destroy America. That’s the fundamental problem Trump is trying to address.

More like Trump is trying to destroy America, playing in to Russia’s hands. Hell, you’re likely a Russian bot commenting here to try to further divide us. Or, you’re an American who has been played by their scheme. Better to go to RT and peddle that garbage there.

We don’t have a president we have a dictator ignoring the existing government agencies, laws, customs and traditions and creating his own authoritarian government. This is just another story to add to the mountain of evidence that he is attempting to change our system of government. Prince North and Trump both belong in jail not in power. Also NOC operations are financed by illegal drug sales and money laundering. Who buys the most drugs? U.S. citizens. Hopefully the system that our founding fathers created to prevent another King from ruling over the country works. That’s why we fought the revolutionary war, to end oppression and tyranny in this country

In other words, there is no genuine movement around the world ever. Every country, every people, every movement, every conflict, every protest, every move is launched, controlled, supported, executed, masterminded by the CIA, the most powerful force on the universe. And this applies to both sides, Right and Left. What a pragmatic and realistic view of the world! No one can see things the way an American does for whom everything is a nail simply because they’re a hammer.

You, do of course acknowledge that beyond “cultural diplomacy,” the CIA et. al have a 80+ year history of “assassination and torture diplomacy,” I hope. The maliciousness of our intelligence community hardly started with President Obama, although he certainly put a nicer face on it.

Anti-racists say there is a RACE problem that can only be solved when the third world pours into EVERY White country and “assimilates.”

What if I said there was a RACE problem that could only be solved if hundreds of millions of non-Blacks were brought into EVERY Black country? How long before people realize I’m not talking about a RACE problem, but the conclusion to the BLACK problem?

These Deep State spies should hack and leak documents from the big banks.

Then we will discover why the ultimate Deep State player, the USDOJ, has given a free pass to the big banks to engage in
illegal activity. Bank managements are never named in USDOJ settlements. Even though identifiable electronic records
such as texts and emails are always cited in the settlements. This occurs in a country where you steal an apple and go to jail.

These are the Deep State’s juiciest secrets. If these spies don’t do it, China and Russia should.

While much is being made about Trump undoing the Obama legacy, I reflect back on the Obama administration and and am so thankful that Obama didn’t do anything stupid like dismantling the Bush legacy instead of doubling down on it and creating an apparatus for Trump.(this is sarcasm, for those of you who don’t know me very well.)

I guess we can definitively say that Trump doesn’t believe in Looking Forward and Not Backward.

I love it when the Intercept shills for the same people that wanted to kill or capture Ed Snowden. The reason Obama and neoliberals hate Flynn is that he dared question Dear Leader Obama’s insane decision to arm the terrorists ISIS and Al Nusra in Syria:

Flynn is a hack, a fraud and a whore who will, hopefully, get exactly what he deserves. Obama was anything but stupid, true he armed the rebels in Syria but before him, every other warmongering president also armed factions that later turned against their benefactors: i.e. the Nicaraguan Contras under Reagan; the Mujahideen/Taliban in Afghanistan under Carter; ISIS and Al Qaeda were the Bushes’ babies, the clusterfuck in Bosnia/Herzegovina under Clinton, the Cuban exiles under Kennedy, etc. etc. – As far as the eye goes, this has been the MO of the US. The fact is that Obama was no different in his actions but he was black which is the only thing that seems to matter to some people.

This is very disturbing, almost as disturbing as the past 80 years of CIA activity undermining democracy around the world. That the criminal Ollie North is still taken seriously by the media and political establishment is an affront to basic decency. I say down with all spy masters, both officially sanctioned and privately owned.

Thank you for shedding light on this. Please keep digging. We need the truth!

disturbing as the past 80 years of CIA activity undermining democracy around the world

Well…..they are active here in the US as well. The one thing I’ve really noticed about all stories related to domestic spying is the CIA’s role in it. It’s reported that the CIA helped to setup the NSA domestic programs….or are involved with them. However, does anyone really believe that the CIA is not utilizing this domestic apparatus or has not built upon it for their own needs?

Fair point. As I understand it, they may have had a role in the assassination of Dr. King. I need to learn considerably more about that, but it is at least clear that there were powerful establishment players who wanted him dead as well as spying and intimidation against the good preacher conducted by the state intelligence apparatus.

This is In-Q-Tel’s project. Would it surprise you to know that the guy in charge of this project is currently a board member of a “Security” software company that gives IT people TOTAL and COMPLETE access to your smartphone?

I can’t tell where the state ends and the private sector begins with all that. The mission statements on the site sound innocuous enough, until you realize that when they talk about big data, they are likely talking about either massive scraping of social media or bulk collection of domestic communications, which I don’t for a second believe they actually stopped. I get a little lost in the alphabet soup of it all as in whether it is the CIA / NSA / FBI / DHS in charge of these sorts of things, but I know for certain that something here is just flat wrong. Seems to me you can’t have a free society if everyone is having to constantly self-censure themselves for fear of setting off some flag at Ft. Meade.

He should have hit the ground running this network, but it’s not too late – providing he fully understands its importance for the future of American values. The stink and corruption embodied in the left are an abomination to all future generations of Americans. Time to skewer Bill Ayers’s radical manifesto.

““Erik has no hobbies,” said the longtime Prince associate. “Counterterrorism is his hobby.”

Shades of White House “plumbers,” CIA narco importing, and Ollie North’s illegal antics. Trump is treading a well-worn path. But you know what? He hasn’t got the brains that even a minimal thinker like Reagan had before Reagan declined w/Alzheimer’s.

I agree w/those who say this will end badly – I only hope a bunch of civilians aren’t killed in the crossfire between these crazy people.

The alleged conflict between Donald Trump and an alleged “deep state” is just a distraction while events of greater importance play out unnoticed and the agenda of the international corporate elite continues uninterrupted.

The term “deep state” itself is part of that false paradigm, with its comforting suggestion of a functioning “state” with a corrupt and corrupting “deep state” within it, with good guys in the government trying to kick out the bad guys.

There is no “deep state”. There is only the state — the government — and the government is the enforcement division of the international corporate elite. There are no good guys at the top.

It’s time for serious wing clipping in Federal agencies that defy the President. While it is nearly impossible to fire a Federal employee, you can send them home to sit on their living room couches and disable their login accounts to all Federal systems. Once that is done you can then move reasonable people into their positions and provide access to what the former “deep State” people used to be able to see.

Even if it temporarily shuts down parts of the massive U.S. intelligence apparatus it would be worth it.

Prince is in over his head. The King shall not have any standing armies of his own. That is the purpose of the Tax and Spending power of the Constitutions military clause. If the Prince were to assume such a private position that would automatically make him an enemy of the state and fair game for target practice.

Wouldn’t it be easier (and cheaper) to simply fire every Leftist government malcontent hired by the CIA during the corrupt Obama regime years? After all, they are all at-will employees. Why retain anarchists?

Amen! I am still wondering why this has not been done already! The border patrol is complaining about 0bama holdovers hurting their efforts and we know there are a ton of 0bama spies in the state dept and DOJ… WHY HAVE THESE PEOPLE NOT BEEN FIRED ALREADY?!

On the issue of Trump fighting his deep state enemies. Somebody is on his side with the outing of Peter Strozek text messages to his mistress. While the NYTimes describes him simply as an agent, he was the deputy head of FBI counter-intelligence. Somebody with enough juice was reading the text messages of upper management of the FBI.

Who comes up with this crap? Let’s say for a minute that a proposal like this was made. Crazy ideas are proposed in DC every day. How does it stretched into a reality when there is no evidence of anything concrete being done?

Trump’s private Gestapo. No doubt his ex-cop bodyguard Keith Schiller will be the head of that department with Mossad directing the operations while we taxpaying suckers pay the bills. Who says that Trump isn’t a good little dictator, huh?

lol really? It’s pretty obvious with the recent events in Saudi Arabia, Hollywood, DC, and other leftist hellpits that Trump already established his network of agents long before he became President. Every place where the Globalists have been established has been totally disrupted. How many Hollywood/Media sources of leftist cash and propaganda have been outed as perverts and rapists? How many Muslim cash cows have been captured and tortured for dirt on leftists? How many RINO politicians suddenly decided to step down?

Trump didn’t decide to become president on a whim. He has been planning this since the 1980’s at least, and he was dead serious about draining the swamp, meaning the one covering the entire damn world.

Because 2 deep states are better than 1. Twice the illegality; twice the unconstitutionality; twice the gun-running; twice the drug-running; twice as many murders; twice as many economic collapses; twice as many regime changes; twice as many twice as lists.

Pompeo et al should also consider hiring Glenn Greenwald, after all he is an eminent expert on the Deep State (an expression he uses willy-nilly without quotation marks), he is a Fox News favorite, he has a deep-seated hatred for the Democratic Party, he is a Russia denier when in comes to interference in 2016 elections, and lastly he is apparently incapable of writing an article critical of the Trump administration.

Despite your clumsy efforts at snarkiness, I think your suggestion is rather good. As a life-long Democrat, I am flabbergasted at the sudden love affair between members of my party and the professional liars in the CIA. The ham-fisted attempts by the intelligence community to short-circuit any moves to normalize relations between the US and Russia and China are very frightening. The cheerleading for those efforts coming from liberals is macabre.

I think that we do need some kind of effort to clip the wings of these rogue agencies. However, Ollie North and Erik Prince are the last people I would call upon to do it. Yes, let’s put Greenwald in charge. He has integrity, a very rare quality these days.

Hosanna, everyone is happy, Glenn it is! His bona fides as a non threat to the Trump administration should mean his application will sail through. As an added bonus, his departure from TI will give oxygen to people really doing hard hitting reporting on one of the darkest administrations in US history.

Oz, your post is priceless. It perfectly captures what is wrong with so many posters here. You are a lifelong Democrat who is “horrified” by cooperation between your party and the CIA and your solution is to endorse a black op private spy agency answerable only to the president, as long as it’s headed by Glenn Greenwald because he has integrity. Perhaps GG is right about the nefarious Democrats after all.

Good. The swamp is deep and infested with people who are committed to destroying Trump. These people believe the will of the people should be rejected. They are the life time government employees and career politicians.

Jeremy Scahill is a closeted CIA-fan boy. After reading his delusional screeds for the last several years I’ve concluded that his real issue is his hatred for the IC is a projection of his own self-loathing. His work reads like a Michael Moore hallucination.

Oh, la la, ma ma… Jeremy Scahill has touched a nerved with the Wingnuts…which is surprising in and by itself that they even know he exists. No doubt this is one of those military operations unleashed on the website…while we taxpaying suckers pay for our own mis/disinformation.

He does whitewash the Agency, that’s for sure, so he’s useful to them. He wrote for instance in January that the Phoenix Program was an “assassination ring”, which isn’t remotely the whole truth; PP is a broad-based psychological warfare program that includes assassinations and a whole host of other horrible things.

Creepy and disturbing, if totally expected, but considering who is calling for and implementing this, I’m not necessarily worried. It takes years to get such an operation going and working properly, and by then the Trump administration will likely be either over or in tatters. You don’t just create an EFFECTIVE spy ring overnight. You need to find and train agents properly, insert them, have them develop local networks of contacts, arrange intel transfers, etc. Trump probably thinks you just get some local detective agency to set it up. Yeah, Prince & North have military experience, but both are self-dealing morons with a track record of failure who only still have jobs because of the Republican Welfare System for crooks, liars, deadbeats and assholes.

You don’t just create an EFFECTIVE spy ring overnight. You need to find and train agents properly, insert them, have them develop local networks of contacts, arrange intel transfers, etc.

Prince has been in this business for a very long time. His assets have never been dissolved, they’re just looking for a government paycheck. From the article:

Among the capabilities Erik Prince offers is a network of deniable assets — spies, fixers, foreign intelligence agents — spread across the globe that could be used by the White House. “You pick any country in the world Erik’s been in, and it’s there,” said a longtime Prince associate. “They’re a network of very dark individuals.” The associate, who has worked extensively with Prince, then began rattling off places where the private spies and paramilitaries already operate — Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, “all across North Africa.”
[…]
In addition to Prince’s former assassination network, the hidden cadre of spies with no official cover — NOCs in CIA jargon — includes the assets of another key player in the Iran-Contra affair, CIA officer Duane Clarridge, who died in 2016. Maguire, who worked under Clarridge as a young CIA paramilitary in Central America during the mid 1980s, took over the network of contract spies, who operate mostly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Prince & North have military experience, but both are self-dealing morons with a track record of failure who only still have jobs because of the Republican Welfare System for crooks, liars, deadbeats and assholes.

I dunno. Scahill has been studying these guys for a long time. And, what happened to these two may have looked like failure, but neither has been held accountable via imprisonment or other punishment, they’re both very wealthy and still far too closely connected to levels of government – and areas of government – that make them dangerous, imo.

While there are likely quite strong ties between the Republican Welfare System for crooks, liars, deadbeats and assholes that does not, by definition, render them either ineffectual or safe to ignore.

Maisie,

Can you not see that Trump has furthered the Deep State’s corporatism, militarism and imperialism?

Inclusive of unethical surveillance of the masses? Inclusive of abusive policing?

Trump has not, as you note, done anything to rein in any of the above heinousness, but that doesn’t mean that he, himself has no issues with those who control the intelligence apparatuses. It is perfectly cogent to argue what you argue in terms of continuity of purpose, yet also acknowledge that Trump feels besieged by investigations and assaults by that group who may – or may not – think that Pence would be even better for their end goals. Trump is, and always has been a wild card. These folks like stability wrt their own plans and almost any other politician would be less subject to whims of pissiness than the current inhabitant of the presidency.

Look, if your point is that Jack D Ripper-style nutjobs like North and Prince have infiltrated our military and government and aren’t going away any time soon, we continue to face a danger from them, and they continue to do evil things here and abroad, no arguments here.

But I’m just not going to fall into the CT trap of assuming that because of that, we’re on the brink of Inevitable Total Fascism, beyond the de facto kind we already have and have had for some time.

Yeah, it could happen, and these are just the sorts of guys you’d expect to be at the center of it. But there’s this whole other “deep state” that runs counter to them, that makes this shall we say challenging for them.

Life is more complicated than a Mel Gibson movie. The US has been pulling secret evil shit for literally centuries. That will likely always be the case. But I’m not getting off the grid any time soon.

My view is that the rule of law and the rule of thugs will always be in conflict, and there’s nothing new here. Trump giving it higher priority makes me less worried, if anything, because literally everything he touches turns to shit.

I mean, look at who they’ve got working for them, besides these two lethal clowns. Rudy 9/11, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, Flynn, Manafort, freaking Kushner, Don Jr. This is not the A Team, exactly. We’re looking at beer hall putsch material here.

So, concerned, yes, terrified, not quite yet. Getting away with the likes of Tahrir Square is not the same thing as open fascism in the US.

You keep thinking that. Trump has seven years and if you think for one second that what your side has been doing for the last year has endeared any American voters to your side… well, I guess you thought hill was going to win in a landslide too.

It will be all your side can do to keep hillary from being your candidate again in 2020.

Your side, my side, the other guy’s side…ain’t ya cute? And so naive…you still haven’t learned that there are only two sides: OURS (yours, mine, and every little guy on the planet) and THEIRS (the rich, the corporations, the ones in power). But you keep drinking the Cool Aid divide, son.

But she DID win by a landslide, 3 millions votes, cupcake. Of course you folks aren’t too good with “the math”. More like “the meth”, as in crystal, and lots of it. Which is the only way to explain an approval rating just about the freezing point (sorry world, we’re still on British Units over here, thanks to geenyuses like rick who probably thinks that Celsius is for sissies and commies).

I think you need to emerge from that cave you’ve been living in for the past year or so. Can’t believe you can get internet there. Say hi to Judge Moore from me.

Sad that this fan fiction passes as journalism. A bunch of anonymous “sources” pitching a Vince Flynn knockoff novel, and all the on the record comments saying this is ridiculous. If you don’t have confirmed documentation supporting a story like this, you don’t have a story. This should never have been published.

The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency.

Heck of a plan. .. I guess a simple letter of termination (of employment) from the POTUS to all “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Trump’s presidency would be too complicated?

Corporations exist for the sole purpose of making profits. The Federal Government exists for the sole purpose of pissing off money (taxpayers’ money that is). However, that will be fixed soon thanks to you Libertarian types. Remember than when the corporations run the show, it will not be the ‘free market’ doing its thing, it will unabashed, unadulterated Fascism. Hopefully, y’all will be immune from the monster you’ll create.

This has the potential to devolve into actual comedy, in a keystone-cop sort of way. Historically, no Agency in Washington ever dies, so multiple groups naturally develop redundancies. With Intelligence, this problem is simply out of control.
Accountability is the issue. When the question “who’s in charge?” cannot be answered succinctly, any wonder there are problems? I wish Trump the best of luck.

Mr Trump could hire me cheap and give me a box full of pink slips, the authority to use them, and a list of Obama new hires from 2008 to present. I would love every minute of my day hunting down these Obama holdover scumbags and firing them.

The alleged conflict between Donald Trump and an alleged “deep state” is just a distraction while events of greater importance play out unnoticed and the agenda of the international corporate elite continues uninterrupted.

The term “deep state” itself is part of that false paradigm, with its comforting suggestion of a functioning “state” with a corrupt and corrupting “deep state” within it, with good guys in the government trying to kick out the bad guys.

There is no “deep state”. There is only the state — the government — and the government is the enforcement division of the international corporate elite.

The alleged conflict between Donald Trump and an alleged “deep state” is just a distraction while events of greater importance play out unnoticed and the agenda of the international corporate elite continues uninterrupted.

The term “deep state” itself is part of that false paradigm, with its comforting suggestion of a functioning “state” with a corrupt and corrupting “deep state” within it, with good guys in the government trying to kick out the bad guys.

There is no “deep state”. There is only the state — the government — and the government is the enforcement division of the international corporate elite.

I used to joke that everything I needed to know I learned in the old sci-fi series, Babylon 5.
Not so funny now, as I watch the corrupt jerk take over my country, and set up a hidden black watch of personal gunmen, hired to ignore the law and kill with impunity.
Bring back the draft, make all American serve either in the military or in national public service…that will help instill patriotism and fight the American fascists who are lusting for power and blood.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon

Babylon 5 was a great series. The Expanse is like the evolution of that series, more concerned with deeper issues like the evolution of human consciousness. The new series is from a series of books by the same name, though each book has its own title.

Perfect. Bring in the criminal Oliver North to promote a criminal activity.

I agree 100% that the CIA and NSA need to be reigned in, though for entirely different reasons
than Trump. What better a way to do it than to use the tried and true republican paradigm of
starving the beasts? I would think that a 75% reduction in their funding would be adequate to
cause them to cease their criminal activities and return to doing the things that are necessary.

But Trump and his followers are not interested in what intelligence agencies are supposed to do,
which is to seek the unvarnished truth. Like the republicans as a whole, they are only interested
in advancing their alternative version of reality, a pyramid built on a base of lies.

Um, your lenses seem just a bit tinted with all that “unvarnished truth” stuff. The last 30 years pretty much indicate intelligence agencies never provide an “unvarnished truth,” and that’s not just on effing moron Trump. I like the idea cutting their budgets by 75% though.

u r wrong on what TRUMP supporters want and what they voted for…..we want CORRUPTION IN ALL ITS STRIPES GONE….our “alternative version of reality ” is a RETURN TO THE VALUES, PROMISES, & ETHICS OF THE CONSTITUTION….end of…there is no other agenda….we want what Americans have for generations DIED FOR….if that’s beyond ur realm, it is U who is seeking an alternative reality…

This sounds like 1933 Germany. Isn’t this treason? Most of the deep state people are actually just whistleblowers which is important nowadays. I am fatigued with this president. I just want a government to provide defense, uphold the laws, help the poor, and help America with trade around the world. Why is this so difficult?

We’ve seen these private, unaccountable, extra legal, para-military, state-security operations before. They have cropped up in every dictatorship and banana republic in the 20th century, and before. Among the most infamous of these was The Schutzstaffel.

Assassins are more subtle today. Senator John McCain was Trump’s most effective internal opponent.
But then, just before the crucial health care vote, suddenly a fast-acting brain cancer nearly struck McCain down. And Graham encouraged him to take time off for an operation, just before the vote.

Coinicidentally, other potentially major political figures – like Joe Biden’s son – died from this very same cancer.

And of course, we know how to give people cancer; we’ve been doing that with lab rats for years.

It’s a little simple-minded for people to be referring to the CIA or the Trump administration as if they were united organizations. Both are very obviously divided within, though the ‘evil establishment’ types certainly seem to have the crazies on the run – for the most part – in the headless White House. Which would certainly be a reason for goons in the mold of Prince or Pompeo to be looking for some kind of work-around. Or maybe this is all just groundwork BS for a whole layer-cake of plausible deniability.

As we predicted months ago, Betsy DeVos’ brother, Prince, now with apparent backing of Pompeo, seems busy setting up a private intelligence organization for Donald Trump. So he can operate outside the FBI and CIA, and outside the law.

Oliver North, who worked similarly with Nixon, seems involved.

After his election, Trump had many private meetings with people in his many varied properties. Though he had Secret Service protection, many of these meetings would likely have been free of government monitoring. Though he was already suspected of illegal activities, and working with Russia.

In another parallel to the fated Nixon admin, Trump’s lawyers are arguing th st a president is above the law, and therefore cannot obstruct justice.

Well, it’s not like the CIA or anyone involved in the deep state are good guys. This is just more evil crap. Maybe the CIA will get mad about private spies usurping and invading their territory, and all these jerks will kill each other. That would be the best result.

Why not? The spies, the merrier.
Mark Twain envisioned an economy based on everyone taking in everyone else’s laundry. Trump could have an economy based on everyone trying to uncover each other’s dirty linen.

Greenwald must be so proud! Not only is Trump using his favourite term of the “deep state” – long a pinned tweet! – but now is creating a private group to counter them. Such influence! Well done Glenn!

I totally agree, each one who helped popularize the “deep state” myth is co-responsible for the apparent formation of this new SA/SS to do the dirty work for the psycho toddler. The USA are totally screwed with this tinfoil hat administration and will take years to recover from its ruinous “policies”.

You’re seeing theater because of a false dichotomy. Trump is an authoritarian, narcissistic bully. He wants a stronger military to bully the world at will, and a private intelligence service to slip Mueller’s noose (fat chance) and to bully his domestic enemies. His frustration at not being able to run the DOJ and the intelligence agencies the same way he runs his sleazy, nepotistic businesses appears to be genuine, and consistent with his character.

Against the actions outlined in this story, two phrases come to mind:
1. No one is above the law.
2. No one is too big to jail.
Make no mistake — this private army/private intelligence mish-mash jeopardizes our government.

Provide proof of your talking point crimes she’s committed. You know, the ones that were unable to be discerned by an 11-hour very public cross examination by Trey Gowdy. Clearly, you believe you have inside information that no one in the ENTIRE Congress has.

This whole anti-Trump narrative has been fishy fom the get go. Tump is a poster boy for the deep state and global hegemony – what’s not to like? He is Obama 2.0! Goldman Sachs continues to shape US economic agenda, Soros has always been a CIA proxy, and Oliver North was just the tip of the iceburg when Reagan was being cast as the anti-liberal solution to deep state intrangisence and incompetence in a post-Carter world. The Phoenix program was an officially sanctioned covert program of state sponsored terror as it was directed against civilian infrastructure. With the aid of false flag terror, that which was once conducted in secret has now become open policy under the auspices of the deep state’s GWOT. Prince is just the latest embodiment of the growing divide between the people and those who pyrport to represent them. A complete lack of democratic accountability has always been the end game objective for both the deep state and those who purportedly oppose it.

Yeah, lets get the two people most famous for behaving utterly lawlessly together to run a private spy agency tasked with targeting the presidents political foes… There is no way that could ever go wrong. I feel like I am living in an onion article.

This is how fascism starts. Hate the CIA, love the CIA, don’t care about the CIA – it doesn’t matter. What matters is a private intel organization that bypasses Congress and is answerable to Trump only is fascist. Fight it with all your legal might.

The Intercept is just another organ of propaganda for the deep state. That’s why there are so many NYT reporters on staff.

The CIA doesn’t work for the American people or the Federal government. The CIA works for the NWO. The CIA is primarily involved in human trafficking, blackmail, mind control, and drug trafficking.

How did NK manage to acquire the technology and scientists?
Who is Elon Musk?
How much did the federal government pay Elon Musk in subsidies?
How did North Korea afford the nuclear program?
Who controls North Korea?
Who really controls North Korea?
What is the CIA?
How can North Korea arm their warheads?
Could a warhead hit America?
What is Uranium One?
Who is the NWO?

It isn’t reasonable to expect the US government to function with just 17 intelligence agencies. On the other hand, creating a dozen or so new agencies would increase the level of bureaucracy. So it makes sense to create new private intelligence operations, to spy on each other and on the existing government agencies. With that many intelligence players, it should be possible for the government to always get the intelligence assessment it is looking for. After all, when you have a mentally challenged administration, the more intelligence you can lay your hands on, the better.

Its so telling that you decided to reference a point in history when the president was engaged in warfare against his own people(horrible, awful people yes, but the southerners were still people). This agency will share much more with Hitler’s SS than Lincolns private wartime spies. Trump picked two people who are known to be willing to break any law in service of their ends, Pinkerton wasn’t known for extrajudicial killings, drug dealing and torture when Lincoln hired him.

No good guys here, all are parasites of US public funds. What is worse, Deep State or Prince-Maguire-North? North has been clearly psychotic for decades. You have to be a sociopath to do the things Prince and Maguire do. I’m not sure how members of Deep State are going to bypass all their Deep State buddies. One thing is sure, we will all pay the price in funding and unknown consequences, while Prince and Co. get more tax cuts for billionaires.

Actually, for any criticisms we can thrown at the Washington Post and it’s owner, Bezos, being a CIA contractor, the same can be said about the Intercept’s financier, Omidyar, and NSA. On the other hand, it is a problem when Oliver North’s services are being requested for “intelligence” type work. That bastard needs to be rotting in solitary confinement.

Glenn has always been against unaccountable power. It’s not so much as “tears shed for the CIA” and more “this is logical conclusion of increasingly unaccountable power of government in the past several decades.”